Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  “Then presumably there’s an owner somewhere.”

  “She’s in here, sir.” It was the PC who spoke, and he pointed his torch into the dining room, where a woman sat in the dark on a hard-back chair staring into space. “I didn’t know what else to do with her, sir,” he went on. “I mean, I couldn’t let her go until she’d spoken with you, and she needed to sit down. She was feeling a bit faint.”

  “You did the right thing,” said Banks.

  “Anyway, it’s Mrs. Tanner. She’s the owner.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Mrs. Tanner. “I just look after it for them. They live in London.”

  “Okay,” said Banks, sitting down opposite her. “We’ll get those details later.”

  PC Travers shone his torch along the table between them, so that neither was dazzled and each could at least see the other. From what Banks could tell, she was a stout woman in her early fifties with short graying hair and a double chin.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Tanner?” he asked.

  She put a hand to her breast. “I’m better now, thank you. It was just a shock. In the dark and all… It’s not that I’ve never seen a dead body before. Just family, like, you know, but this…” She took a sip from the steaming mug in front of her. It looked as if Travers had had the good sense to make some tea, which meant there must be a gas cooker.

  “Are you up to answering a few questions?” Banks asked her.

  “I don’t know that I can tell you anything.”

  “Leave that to me to decide. How did you come to find the body?”

  “He was just lying there, like he is now. I didn’t touch anything.”

  “Good. But what I meant was: Why did you come here?”

  “It was the power cut. I live just down the road, see, the other side of the pub, and I wanted to show him where the emergency candles were. There’s a big torch, too.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Just before eight o’clock.”

  “Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  “See anyone?”

  “Not a soul.”

  “No cars?”

  “No.”

  “Was the door open?”

  “No. It was shut.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “First, I knocked.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, there was no answer, see, and it was all dark inside.”

  “Didn’t you think he might be out?”

  “His car’s still here. Who’d go out walking on a night like this?”

  “What about the pub?”

  “I looked in, but he wasn’t there, and nobody had seen him, so I came back here. I’ve got the keys. I thought maybe he’d had an accident or something, fallen down the stairs in the dark, and all because I’d forgotten to show him where the candles and the torch were.”

  “Where are they?” Banks asked.

  “In a box on the shelf under the stairs.” She shook her head slowly. “Sorry. As soon as I saw him just… lying there… it went out of my head completely, why I’d come.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Banks sent PC Travers to find the candles. He came back a few moments later. “There were matches in the kitchen by the cooker, sir,” he said, and proceeded to set candles in saucers and place them on the dining table.

  “That’s better,” said Banks. He turned back to Mrs. Tanner. “Do you know who your guest was? His name?”

  “Nick.”

  “That’s all?”

  “When he came by when he arrived last Saturday and introduced himself, he just said his name was Nick.”

  “He didn’t give you a check with his full name on it?”

  “He paid cash.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Some people prefer it that way.”

  “How long was he staying?”

  “He paid for two weeks.”

  Two weeks in the Yorkshire Dales in late October seemed like an odd holiday choice to Banks, but there was no accounting for taste. Maybe this Nick was a keen rambler. “How did he find the place?”

  “The owners have a web site, but don’t ask me owt about that. I only see to the cleaning and general maintenance.”

  “I understand,” said Banks. “Any idea where Nick came from?”

  “No. He didn’t have any sort of foreign accent, but he wasn’t from around here. Down south, I’d say.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “I only ever saw him the once,” Mrs. Tanner said. “He seemed like a nice enough lad.”

  “How old would you say he was?”

  “Not old. Mid-thirties, maybe. I’m not very good at ages.”

  Car headlights shone through the window and soon the small house was filled with SOCOs. Peter Darby, the photographer, and Dr. Glendenning, the Home Office pathologist, arrived at about the same time, Glendenning complaining that Banks thought he had nothing better to do than hang around dead bodies on a Friday evening. Banks asked PC Travers to take Mrs. Tanner home and stay with her. Her husband was out at a darts match in Eastvale, she said, but he would soon be back, and she assured Banks she would be fine on her own. The SOCOs quickly set up lights in the living room, and while Peter Darby photographed the cottage with his Pentax and digital camcorder, Banks watched Dr. Glendenning examine the body, turning it slightly to examine the eyes.

  “Anything you can tell us, Doc?” Banks asked after a few minutes.

  Dr. Glendenning got to his feet and sighed theatrically. “I’ve told you about that before, Banks. Don’t call me ‘Doc.’ It’s disrespectful.”

  “Sorry,” said Banks. He peered at the corpse. “Anyway, he spoiled my Friday evening, too, so anything you can tell me would help.”

  “Well, for a start, he’s dead. You can write that down in your little notebook.”

  “I suspected as much,” said Banks.

  “And don’t be so bloody sarcastic. You realize I was supposed to be at the Lord Mayor’s banquet by now drinking Country Manor and munching vol-au-vent?”

  “Sounds bad for your health,” Banks said. “You’re better off here.”

  Glendenning favored him with a sly smile. “Maybe you’re right at that, laddie.” He smoothed down his silvery hair. “Anyway, it was almost certainly the blow to the back of the head that killed him. I’ll know better when I get him on the table, of course, but that’ll have to do for now.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Not more than two or three hours. Rigor hasn’t started yet.”

  Banks looked at his watch. Five past nine. Mrs. Tanner had probably been there about an hour or so, which narrowed it down even more, between six and eight, say. She couldn’t have missed the killer by long, which made her a very lucky woman. “Any chance he got drunk, fell and hit his head?” Banks knew it was unlikely, but he had to ask. You didn’t go off wasting valuable police time and resources on a domestic accident.

  “Almost certainly not,” said Glendenning, glancing over at the poker. “For a start, if it had happened that way, he would most likely be lying on his back, and secondly, judging by the shape of the wound and the blood and hair on that poker over there, I’d say your murder weapon’s pretty obvious this time. Maybe you’ll find a nice clean set of fingerprints and be home by bedtime.”

  “Some hope,” said Banks, seeing yet another weekend slip away. Why couldn’t murderers commit their crimes on Mondays? It wasn’t only the prospect of working all weekend that made Friday murders such a pain in the arse, but that people tended to make themselves scarce. Offices closed, workers visited relatives, everything slowed down. And the first forty-eight hours were crucial in any investigation. “Anyway,” he said, “the poker was close to hand, which probably means that whoever did it didn’t come prepared to kill. Or wanted to make it look that way.”

  “I’ll leave the speculation to you. As far as I’m concerned, he belongs to the coroner now. Yo
u can remove the body whenever Cartier-Bresson here has finished.”

  Banks smiled. He noticed Peter Darby stick his tongue out at Glendenning behind the doctor’s back. They always seemed to be getting in one another’s way at crime scenes, which were the only places they ever met.

  By now it was impossible to ignore the activity in the rest of the house, which was swarming with SOCOs. Thick cables snaked through the conservatory, attached to bright lights which cast shadows of men in protective clothing on the walls. The place resembled a film set. Feeling very much in the way, Banks edged out toward the conservatory. The wind was still raging, and at times it felt strong enough to blow away the whole frail structure. It didn’t help that they had to leave the door open to let the cables in.

  Detective Sergeant Stefan Nowak, the crime scene coordinator, arrived next, and after a brief hello to Banks and Annie he set to work. It was his job to liaise between the scientists and the detectives, if necessary translating the jargon into comprehensible English, and he did it very well. His degrees in physics and chemistry certainly helped.

  There are people who will stand for hours watching others work, Banks had noticed. You see them at building sites, eyes against the knotholes in the high wooden fences as the mechanical diggers claw at the earth and men in hard hats yell orders over the din. Or standing in the street looking up as someone on scaffolding sandblasts the front of an old building. Banks wasn’t one of them. That kind of thing was a perverse form of voyeurism as far as he was concerned. Besides, there was nothing much more he could do at the house now until the team had finished, and his thoughts moved pleasantly to the candlelit pub not more than thirty yards away. The people in there would have to be interviewed. Someone might have seen or heard something. One of them might even have done it. Best talk to them now, while they were still in there and their memories were fresh. He told Winsome and Templeton to stay with Stefan and the SOCOs and to come and get him if anything important came up, then he called out to Annie, and they headed for the gate.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Monday, 8th September, 1969

  When Chadwick was satisfied that things were running smoothly, he called Rick Hayes over and suggested they talk in the van. It was set up so that one end was a self-contained cubicle, just about big enough for an interview, though at six foot two, Chadwick felt more than a little claustrophobic. Still, he could put up with it, and a bit of discomfort never did any harm when someone had something to hide.

  Close up, Hayes looked older than Chadwick would have expected. Perhaps it was the stress of the weekend, but he had lines around his eyes and his jaw was tense. Chadwick put him in his late thirties, but with the hairstyle and the clothes, he could probably pass for ten years younger. He had about three or four days’ stubble on his face, his fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and the first two fingers of his left hand were stained yellow with nicotine.

  “Mr. Hayes,” Chadwick began. “Maybe you can help me. I need some background here. How many people attended the festival?”

  “About twenty-five thousand.”

  “Quite a lot.”

  “Not really. There were a hundred and fifty thousand at the Isle of Wight the weekend before. Mind you, they had Dylan and the Who. And we had competition. Crosby, Stills and Nash and Jefferson Airplane were playing in Hyde Park on Saturday.”

  “And you had?”

  “Biggest draws? Pink Floyd. Led Zeppelin.”

  Chadwick, who had never heard of either, dutifully made a note of the names after checking the spelling with Hayes. “Who else?”

  “A couple of local groups. Jan Dukes de Grey. The Mad Hatters. The Hatters especially have been getting really big these past few months. Their first LP is already in the charts.”

  “What do you mean, local?” Chadwick asked, making a note of the names.

  “Leeds. General area, at any rate.”

  “How many groups in all?”

  “Thirty. I can give you a full list, if you like.”

  “Much appreciated.” Chadwick wasn’t sure where that information would get him, but every little bit helped. “Something like that must require a lot of organization.”

  “You’re telling me. Not only do you have to book the groups well in advance and arrange for concessions, parking, camping and toilet facilities, you’ve also got to supply generators, transport and a fair bit of sound equipment. Then there’s security.”

  “Who did you use?”

  “My own people.”

  “You’ve done this sort of thing before?”

  “On a smaller scale. It’s what I do. I’m a promoter.”

  Chadwick scribbled something on his pad, shielding it from Hayes in the curve of his hand. Not that it meant anything; he just wanted Hayes to think it did. Hayes lit a cigarette. Chadwick opened the window. “The festival lasted three days, is that correct?”

  “Yes. We started late Friday afternoon and wrapped up today in the wee hours.”

  “What time?”

  “Led Zeppelin played last. They came on shortly after one o’clock this morning, and they must have finished about three. We were supposed to wind up earlier, but there were the inevitable delays – equipment malfunctions, that sort of thing.”

  “What happened at three?”

  “People started drifting home.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “There was nothing to keep them here. The ones who had pitched tents probably went back to the campground to grab a few hours’ sleep, but the rest left. The field was pretty much empty for the cleanup crew to start by dawn. The rain helped.”

  “What time did it start to rain?”

  “Must have been about half two in the morning. Just a brief shower, like.”

  “So it was mostly dry while this Led Zeppelin was playing?”

  “Mostly. Yes.”

  Yvonne had arrived home at six-thirty, Chadwick thought, which gave her more than enough time to get back from Brimleigh, if she had been there. What had she been doing between three and six-thirty? Chadwick decided he had better leave that well alone until he had established whether she had been there or not.

  Given a time of death between one-thirty and five-thirty, the victim might have been killed while the band was playing, or while everyone was heading home. Most likely the former, he decided, as there would have been less chance of witnesses. And possibly before the rain, as there was no obvious trail. “Are there any other gates,” he asked, “in addition to where I came in?”

  “No. Only to the north. But there are plenty of exits.”

  “I assume there’s fencing all around the site?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t a free concert, you know.”

  “But no one would have had any real reason to go through the woods?”

  “No. There are no exits on that side. It doesn’t lead anywhere. The parking, camping and gates are all on the north side, and that’s where the nearest road is, too.”

  “I understand you had a bit of trouble with skinheads?”

  “Nothing my men couldn’t handle. A gang of them tried to break through the fence and we saw them off.”

  “North or south?”

  “East, actually.”

  “When was this?”

  “Saturday night.”

  “Did they come back?”

  “Not as far as I know. If they did, they were quiet about it.”

  “Did people actually sleep in the field over the weekend?”

  “Some did. Like I said, we had a couple of fields for parking and camping just over the hill there. A lot of people pitched tents and came back and forth. Others just brought sleeping bags. Look, why does all this matter? I’d have thought it was obvious what happened.”

  Chadwick raised his eyebrows. “Oh? I must be missing something. Tell me.”

  “Well, she must have got into an argument with her boyfriend or something, and he killed her. She was a bit away from the crowds, there by the edge of the wood
s, and if everyone was listening to Led Zeppelin, they probably wouldn’t notice if the world ended.”

  “Loud, are they, this Led Zeppelin?”

  “You could say that. You should have a listen.”

  “Maybe I will. Anyway, it’s a good point you’ve raised. I’m sure the music might have helped the killer. But why assume it was her boyfriend? Do boyfriends usually stab their girlfriends?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just… I mean… who else?”

  “Could have been a homicidal maniac, perhaps?”

  “You’d know more about that than I do.”

  “Or a passing tramp?”

  “Now you’re taking the piss.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Hayes, I am taking this very seriously indeed. But in order to find out who might have done this, boyfriend or whatever, we need to know who she is.” He made a note, then looked directly at Hayes. “Maybe you can help me there?”

  “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  “Oh, come off it, laddie.” Chadwick stared at him.

  “I don’t know who she is.”

  “Ah, but you did see her somewhere?”

  Hayes looked down at his clasped hands. “Maybe.”

  “And where, perhaps, might you have seen her?”

  “She may have been backstage at some point.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. How does a person get to go backstage?”

  “Well, usually, you need a pass.”

  “And who hands those out?”

  “Security.”

  “But?”

  Hayes wriggled in his chair. “Well, you know, sometimes… a good-looking girl. What can I say?”

  “How many people were backstage?”

  “Dozens. It was chaos back there. We had a VIP area roped off with a beer tent and lounges, then there were the performers’ caravans, dressing rooms, toilets. We also had a press enclosure in front of the stage. Some of the performers hung around to listen to other bands, you know, then maybe they’d jam backstage and… you know…”

  “Who were the last groups to play on Sunday?”

  “We kicked off the evening session with the Mad Hatters just after dark, then Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.”